Columbus and the Native Americans

On October 12, 1492, Columbus and his crew arrived at an an island in
the Bahamas inhabited by the Arawak Indians. When Columbus and his
sailors came ashore, the Arawaks ran to greet them bringing food and
gifts. Columbus wrote the following in his log...

They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many
other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks'
bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They do not bear
arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by
the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance...They would make fine
servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do
whatever we want.

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found,
I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and
might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.

Flat or Round?

To make a better myth, American culture has perpetuated the idea that
Columbus was boldly forging ahead while everyone else, even his own
crew, imagined the world was flat. The superstitious sailors ... grew
increasingly mutinous, according to The American Pageant, because
they were fearful of sailing over the edge of the world. In truth,
few people on both sides of the Atlantic believed in 1492 that the
world was flat. Most Europeans and Native Americans knew the world to
be round. It looks round. It casts a circular shadow on the
moon. Sailors see its roundness when ships disappear over the horizon,
hull first, then sails.

In return for bringing Spain gold and spices, Columbus was promised
10% of the profits, governorship over new-found lands, and the fame
that would go with a new title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Columbus reported to the Court in Madrid that he had reached Asia and
an island off the coast of China. He asked for ships and men for a
second expedition and promised to bring as much gold as they
need... and as many slaves as they ask.

But they found no gold fields, so they went on a great slave
raid. They rounded up 1500 Arawak men, women, and children and kept
them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs. When the Spaniards were
ready, they picked the 500 best specimens to load onto the ships. Of
those 500, only 300 survived the trip. When they arrived in Spain they
were put up for sale.

But too many of the slaves were dying. So Columbus became more
desperate to fill his ships with gold. In Cicao on Haiti, Columbus and
his men ordered all Indians to collect a certain quantity of gold
every three months. When they turned over the gold, they were given
copper tokens to hang around their necks. Any Indian found without a
token had their hands cut off and bled to death. The Indians' task
was impossible. The only gold around was bits of dust in the
streams. So they fled, and many were hunted down and killed.

The Arawaks attempted to put together a resistance army, but they
faced Spaniards with armor, muskets, swords, and horses. Mass suicides
among the Arawaks began.

When it became obvious to the Spaniards that there was no gold left,
they worked the Indians at a ferocious pace as slave labor on estates
called encomiendas.

Las Casas describes the Spaniards becoming more conceited every
day. Ater a while they refused to walk any distance. They rode the
backs of Indians or were carried on hammocks by Indians running in
relays (they also had Indians carry large leaves to shade them from
the sun and others fan them with goose wings.)

The Spaniards thought nothing of knifing Indians... and cutting
slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.Two of
these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying
a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.

The Indians' atempt to defend themselves failed. And when they ran
off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports,
they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate
silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for
help.

Columbus's purpose from the beginning was not mere exploration or
even trade, but conquest and exploitation, for which he used religion
as a rationale. Typically, after discovering an island and
encountering a tribe of Indians new to them, the Spaniards would read
aloud (in Spanish) what came to be called the Requirement. Here
is one version:

I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name of the
Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. If you
do not do it, I tell you that with the help of God I will enter
powerfully against you all. I will make war everywhere and every way
that I can. I will subject you to the yoke and obedience to the Church
and to his majesty. I will take your women and children and make them
slaves. ...The deaths and injuries that you will receive from here on
will be your own fault and not that of his majesty nor of the
gentlemen that accompany me. footnote #1

Footnote

1. The Requirement has been widely reprinted. This translation is from
500 Years of Indigenous and Popular Resistance Campaign (n.p.:
Guatemala Committee for Peasant Unity, 1990).